Cormac Mccarthy The Road Analysis

The female narrator was going to be arrested but Papa sacrifice all his money. When Papa heard about the situation “he went to the post and paid them money, all the money he had” (24). In the story the female narrator was getting arrested because the member of the youth federation. Not only Papa paid money to help but he also wants the best for her daughter. In the story, Papa wants her daughter to have more opportunities because he was very poor so he wants her to be married. “He wants me to find a man who will do some good”(7). Papa wants her to be married who’s very rich. Even though he wasn’t wealthy.

The father does not comply with his son and leaves the naked man alone in the cold. This further shows the differences between the boy and his father. The final contrast between the two is exemplified with the ending. Throughout the book the reader is allowed to assume that if the son dies in the novel then the father would consequently commit suicide. At the end of the story when the father dies first the boy stays strong and decides to blindly follow other survivors and put his faith in them. Throughout, the story; however the father doesn't put any trust into anyone. His son, being a foil of him decides to put his faith into other survivors and takes a leap of faith and follow them their camp. This instance further shows the stark difference between the father and the son.

Per the tutor's request, the mother and father ceased asking the son about his day as often. They became less protective and more carefree of their son's activities under the promise from his tutor that this was what he needed. " Mrs. Coble," the tutor said, ""I think this kid is hurting. You know? Here's a serious, sensitive kid, telling you he'd like to take on some grown-up challenges, and you're giving him the message that he can't be trusted.

Throughout the story, the man often repeats that his son is why he is living. He says that his son is the reason why he makes an effort to find food, shelter, and protection every night. Because of their powerful bond, the man's main goal is to keep his son safe. The father puts this attitude to the extreme when he carries a gun with one bullet around so that if him and his son are captured, he can save his son from torture and pain by shooting him. The man loves his son so much that he is willing to kill the boy to save him from a bad life. The action and this love proves that the man's motivation in life to keep his son safe derives from their special connection. The boy also does everything for his father because they have such a powerful bond. After his father dies, the boy stays with him: "he sat beside him and he was crying and he couldn't stop. He cried for a long time. I'll talk to you every day, he whispered. And I wont forget. No matter what" (240-241). The boy is devastated. He had lost all he lived for. Although the boy was in an awful circumstance, he still says that he won't forget his father which illustrates how strong their relationship is. The boy continues to say that gets up and starts walking down the road. This is important because now he takes with him a memory of his father that he

your life. He held the boy shivering against him and counted each frail breath in the blackness.”

Mccarthy creates a bleak post apocalyptic society through the use of imagery. He describes a world where there is no wildlife and all that’s left are the ashes. “The road was gullied eroded and barren. The bones of dead creatures sprawled in the washes. Middens of anonymous trash”(177). While the man and the boy travel the road, they rarely come across other living things. The boy even shows a lack of knowledge about animals, constantly asking his father questions about them. They always have to keep moving due to the constant threat of danger. Their nomadic lifestyle prevents them from becoming attached to anything. This gives the feeling of absolute isolation. Throughout the novel, the man often has dreams of life before. His dreams are described in vivid colors, "walking in a flowering wood where birds flew before them he and the child and the

Love can be forever, but it is not always enough to bring people through the tough times that they face. In Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, a loving father and son struggle to survive in a post-apocalyptic world filled with barren lands and barbaric people. During their struggle to travel South, they depict a loving, if rocky relationship. Through the irreplaceable father son relationship McCarthy reveals that love can only carry people so far.

The boy is very warm-hearted and appears to struggle to understand that danger could occur at any moment, whilst his father knows a lot more about what some people, “the bad guys”, do in order to survive. It could be seen that the child is very naive and therefore trusts others more than his father. However his trust in others teaches his father a valuable lesson; that not everyone is a “bad guy”. For instance when the pair come across Ely, the father is wary about him but his son is adamant that they give him a tin of food. This shows to readers that the boy has faith unlike his father. Another example is when the son sees the little boy; he begs his father to go back and help him and asks if he can go with them. I believe that he wants to help others as

The love between the protagonists in the times of hardship is the most profound relationship in the book and the strength of it raises the standard of the novel. The relation of the father and the son is very strong and symbolizes protection to the child. They take the initiative to struggle and live in an apocalyptic place which has been completely destroyed. The father is like the soul of his son and the very last hope for the son to survive .The son finds support in his son when he goes through the stages of loneliness and despair. It is a natural way for people to rely on others for support and by survival instincts; it is deeper when there is such a close relationship between a father and a son. McCarthy in terms of characterization makes the buy very innocent as he does not know how to differentiate between the “good guys” and “bad guys”. He wants to help everyone and on the other hand the father is very strong and is wise. He lives each and every day as a normal day so that he can keep his son strong as well. The father is very intelligent as he responds to his son questions thoughtfully to keep his son’s hope up. The father is very optimistic even when they are facing a hard time moving forward. To quote, “The lay listening, Can you do it? When the time comes? When the time comes there will be no time. Now is the time. Curse God and die. What if it doesn’t fire? It has to fire. What if it doesn’t fire? Could you crush that beloved

The boy asks the man, “Can I ask you something? Yes. Of course you can. What would you do if I died? If you died I would want to die too. So you could be with me? Yes. So I could be with you. Okay” (10-11). McCarthy points out that the man’s love for his son is what makes the man want to survive in the post-apocalyptic world. In the novel, before attempting suicide, the man’s wife criticizes him for using the boy as a reason to survive. The wife tells the man “The only thing I can tell you is that you wont survive for youself” (57). The quote explains that in the world, where landscapes devastated by fire, the weather conditions are getting harsh, the town and houses are abandoned, little food, no supplies, and no shelter left, no want to live there, but the man wants to continue living the life, so he can always be with his son.

Throughout the novel, McCarthy illustrates the unconditional love the man has for the boy. This is depicted by the continuous sacrificing of necessities to keep the boy healthy and alive. McCarthy uses imagery to illustrate the hopelessness of the world and the daily struggle to stay alive by describing their living situation as “squatted on the road and ate cold rice and cold beans” (29). The use of the word “cold” has a negative connotation, showing the deprivation of luxuries and necessities of the world. The words “rice” and “beans” usually staple goods demonstrating the bare minimum they have to consume. The man internalizes the situation thinking, “So thin. My heart he said. My heart” (29). The syntax, specifically repetitive short sentences, demonstrates the everyday tension and grave society they are part of. This description also shows the love of the man towards the boy, which can be seen from the action of the man hugging the boy. Although they are struggling, the man overlooks these struggles, solely focused

One thing that remains constant in the ever-changing world of Cormac McCarthy’s dystopian novel The Road is the relationship between The Man and The Boy. The father and son’s bond is extremely close, especially due to the isolation they face on The Road, but it is filled with love and endearment, like someone would expect any relationship between a father and son to be.

In the beginning of the novel, Papa is deciding if it is even worth suffering this much to survive. “He was lost in concentration” (p. 24). This quote demonstrates personification, there is no way he can physically be lost in

As the poem continues it is depicted the son is waltzed into his bedroom. Another line of the poem “still clinging to your shirt” depicts the affection the son had towards his father. Though it is not clear that all this memory was a pleasant or not but the use of word “papa” within the title clearly depicts the love he had towards his father. And it seems that the author is mourning the death of his father and this loss was not a pleasant experience for his. With the help of this poem he is recalling all his past

The boy who travels with his father finds purpose to survive in believing that they will one day find the good guys. In this he believes that they themselves carry the torch of being the good guys and finds hope in that. Throughout the novel, the boy expresses his heart for helping others several times when he gives an old scraggly man on the road a can of peaches, pleading to help a man who got struck by lightning, and by being worried about a boy who was alone they had passed on the road. The boy evidently through his actions expresses a need to help others. When the boy spotted another little boy from the road, he ran over to where he had seen him and searched for him. When the Father saw that the boy ran off, he grabbed the boy by the arm and said “‘Come on. There’s no one to see. Do you want to die? Is that what you want?’” Sobbing, the boy replied, “I don’t care, I don’t care” (85). The boy sees the little boy as alone with nothing and he feels like it is his responsibility to his own